Better Product Weekly: On Not Reacting Too Quickly with Kirsten Moorefield

Episode Transcription

Anna Eaglin:

Well, Christian, it's week three of Better Product Weekly and week three of what's going on in the world.

Christian Beck:

Well, actually, have I been home for three weeks? Who knows, three weeks, three years, four years. Did you see that Cleveland, that news from Cleveland where she cuts, I think, is the weatherman. She was like, "Nobody knows what day it is. Let's go check in with what day it is." Did you see that?

Anna Eaglin:

No, I didn't.

Christian Beck:

Oh, it's hilarious. She's like, "I can't tell. What day is it?" It just cuts to the weatherman in front of a giant screen. It just says, "Monday. It's Monday." Anyway, that's how I feel.

Anna Eaglin:

Helpful.

Christian Beck:

I know this is our third episode. I don't know how long I've been home, but it feels like forever.

Anna Eaglin:

Yeah. Agree.

Christian Beck:

But we've been talking a lot about peaking with the coronavirus and all that stuff. It's starting to feel like we're talking to some people, they can sort of see that maybe there's an insight even though we still don't know what it is, but I don't know that it's necessarily changing anybody's strategy right now. I think everybody's still kind of figuring out what to do with all this. What's one thing that stuck out to you from the world of product this week from your conversations or from clients you've been working with?

Anna Eaglin:

I think one thing I saw this week, we were talking about in our kind of internal Slack on Innovatemap is that some of these free trials are starting to come [inaudible 00:01:27], and so I think people initially were getting out there, extending features. We're starting to see them stop and trying to convert people to pay or to upselling. It's wondering is that the right thing to do right now? It seems like it's probably the right thing to do for businesses. They now need to start converting some of these customers, and you need to get back and get more people paying again. But it's a interesting time to be asking people for money. I don't know. What are your thoughts about [inaudible 00:01:56].

Christian Beck:

No, I hadn't totally noticed that, but I know several people on our team have noticed those trials. I thought about it and thought, "I mean, maybe they all started, what, I guess three or four weeks ago, and so now, they're starting to come up." Hopefully, some of them are extending. It is tough. I think it's hard too. We talked to Darien, who's an early-stage founder, and he was talking about the balance of knowing that you have something to offer and you owe it to people to talk about that. I'm trying to be, oddly, like I'm trying to be more empathetic to the sales and marketing people that are out there trying to figure out when is the right time to reach out. Even though for you, you just got like the 70th email of the day and so you get kind of short. It's just more people trying to do their job.

Christian Beck:

I think my biggest thing is when people take the time to talk to me directly and authentically rather than me getting the email that feels automated, which I realize is not new feedback. That's been something you should always be aware, but right now, if you're not saying something personal, then I just don't even have time. But if you mention something personal about my business or me or show that you put any thought into it, I'll react a little bit differently to it. With the trials, I think people extending them, getting them to stay on longer is also good.

Anna Eaglin:

No, I think that makes sense. It's, I think, that connection of "I'm a business, you're a business, we kind of do our thing, and we can make money." I think that's fair.

Christian Beck:

The other thing that I... so I wrote this on LinkedIn, which quick plug for myself on LinkedIn and yourself just because it's an easy way to get in touch with either of us. Christian Beck, Innovatemap. Anna Eaglin, Innovatemap. That should be enough to find us on there to connect. You can also email us podcast@innovatemap.com as well if you have any thoughts, suggestions, or reactions to this.

Christian Beck:

But open to the connections on there too, and you'll see, I try to write a little bit more. I think there's one change I've made since being home and I've got more time as is trying to write, at least share a little bit more on LinkedIn. I wrote something earlier this week just reacting to, I think, one of the tougher parts of this era is people getting let go, companies having to let entire product teams go or let entire feature teams go. It's been hard to watch, hard to hear colleagues, and then talking to new grads coming out into this, so I was trying to figure out what could I say that's meaningful.

Christian Beck:

The thing that I kept thinking about was that this isn't a permanent thing, even though it sucks right now and that it's not assigned that tech isn't valued or, for my perspective, design isn't valued. It's just people all across the board unfortunately be losing jobs: sales, marketing, product, design, research. It can be tempting to think as you lose your job to think, "Oh, see research isn't... I got let go."

Christian Beck:

You want to fight against that thinking. Right now companies are just trying to figure out how to even make it through, but I don't think there's any larger, almost like indictment of product going on right now. It's just every company is just having to make do, but product is going to be just as or more important once this starts correcting itself.

Anna Eaglin:

I think it's a good point, and it ties to some of the things I think we're hearing people say when it's important to the anguish between micro patterns that are just happening today, they're happening because of the situation that we're in versus these more longterm sustainable changes that are going to take place. I think digital transformation and having a digital strategy and being accessible to your markets, that is a huge theme and trend, and we are going to see that continue beyond this quarantine, beyond coronavirus going forward because now once you set people's expectations in a certain way, that's not going to change. But I agree with you. I think some of these, like seeing design teams letting go, seeing researchers letting go, product teams, innovation teams at that, I think that's just more of a kind of a micro shift of a struggling economy and not necessarily a longterm change.

Christian Beck:

Yeah. Well, actually, as you were talking, I was thinking one of the examples that shows the almost counterintuitiveness of this state is Toast, the company that makes point-of-sales hardware and software for restaurants and helps you do delivery. I saw a headline for them thinking, "Oh, man, they've got to be killing it," but the headline was actually someone from my network showing that they'd laid off a lot of their other team.

Christian Beck:

That was so weird to me because I've got friends who run or work at restaurants, and they're looking to Toast to help give them a lifeline. Here you have one company that's uniquely positioned to help save some people, but that company itself is also struggling because, of course, a lot of the restaurants are going under too. Anyway, it's just it was a weird contrast for me to see toast, for my friend who owns a restaurant, is like, "This thing seems like it could be perfect. Let's get this set up," and so I'm working to help them get it set up. That same company on the other side is really hurting too, and that's really what we're seeing all over is from one perspective you may feel like sky's falling, and then from the other lens, it's like that's the thing that saving me. I think that contrast has gotten really in front of my face this week.

Anna Eaglin:

This week, we're talking to Kirsten Moorefield, co-founder and chief operating officer of Cloverleaf. Thanks for joining us today, Kirsten.

Kirsten Moorefield:

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Anna Eaglin:

Just to start off, could you tell us really quickly what does Cloverleaf do?

Kirsten Moorefield:

We're a SaaS platform that builds high performing teams, and what that means depends on who we're talking to. To every entry level, to CEO, every employee inside an organization, we have an automated coaching platform, and we use a lot of psychometric data to know exactly how do you work your best, how do you think your best, what are conflict triggers? We send out tips on that, which then generates even more psychometric data that boils up to the enterprise to help people make better decisions when they're trying to think about some of the big tough ones: employee engagement, career succession planning, those larger workforce questions that people have.

Anna Eaglin:

Obviously, helping people make big decisions, keeping the workforce engaged. What's been the most challenging thing about the last three weeks? I mean, professionally, of course. Personally, I think we're all in a tailspin, but I'm really curious, professionally, what's been the big issues in dealing with that Cloverleaf?

Kirsten Moorefield:

The irony of it all is we've been dealing with the exact same team issues that everyone else is dealing with right now, which is how do you stay motivated, how do you stay really well-connected, how do you just push through this time when everyone is very distracted, and just trying to figure out how to work in a totally different way? Really, honestly, nothing new. Same as everybody else, which is ironic because our platform is built for exactly solving those problems.

Christian Beck:

Has it made you become more empathetic to the people that you're serving? Has it had any effect on that or how you view your own product?

Kirsten Moorefield:

It's actually been really encouraging for our whole team to realize that some of the things that we're feeling and struggling with are not unique to us. We're getting product feedback from people that's saying exactly the same things that we're saying about our own life, and people are telling us our product is helping them, which is actually just a good motivational booster for our people.

Christian Beck:

What was the... I'm trying to think of how to best ask this because I don't want to say what was the first thing you did differently because I don't know... Well, I'll ask that. This kind of crept up on everybody, and then it was like... I don't know, it just felt like a tidal wave, but what was the first change or something differently that you started doing, but from the product perspective of your approach to your customers once it started?

Kirsten Moorefield:

The biggest thing that we've changed is actually not so much product, but it's more around messaging, so in customer success, in product marketing, and in overall marketing. We have a unique data set. It's almost like a metric. It's like we have unique information on how do people manage change based on their individual personality. We have information on how can you stay motivated, and that's unique to a lot of different people. We've just started to focus on messaging and offering free support in terms of kind of like free consulting that we can do from customer success, things like that.

Kirsten Moorefield:

Really, honestly, product roadmap-wise, we had a lot of initial big conversations and decided not to react quickly and not to whiplash our team even though that sounds a bit ironic because literally the whole world has changed, so staying the course may sound unwise, and we really debated that a lot internally, but we decided, really, what we're doing and what we're already building doesn't need to change. Just more how we present it to people is what's helpful to change.

Kirsten Moorefield:

Part of that though is also because one of our top three criteria in terms of target market has always been remote teams, so that does definitely change the situation to where we don't have to rapidly change what our product does. We actually, if anything, have just become more valuable with all of this.

Christian Beck:

I want to ask one followup too. You said you decided not to react quickly on the product standpoint. We've had internal discussions at our own agency to figure out what are we going to change, what are we going to pivot? We had a lot of discussions. I know a lot of other product teams are doing that. What was that process like for you? I mean, that seems simple now to say that, but I'm sure there's a lot of discussion looking at different things. How did you come to that conclusion to figure out, "Let's not make a bunch of changes." Walk us through that process.

Kirsten Moorefield:

A lot of it actually to do with some larger opportunities that we already have in the pipeline that are not changed with everything happening in the world, so there's real revenue tied to some of the things that we're already doing. Also, we have a fantastic CTO who is very steady, and whereas myself and my co founder are quite entrepreneurial and sometimes see new shiny objects, he's always like the lighthouse to our crazy rocky seashore that we can go on.

Kirsten Moorefield:

Really, the conversations were at first just, "Hey, what are new things that we're seeing?" and then our CTO really pushing back on us and saying... just asking really good, hard critical questions. Then also just some feedback from existing users on what is helpful right now and how they see us being essential in this time of change and crisis and realizing what we have is... what would we are building even in the next six months is actually spot-on what the world is going to be needing in the next six months.

Kirsten Moorefield:

But all that to say, we did actually launch our Slack integration serendipitously at the perfect time. We had built a new feature specifically for remote teams, and it launched like the week that everyone started going remote, which was just perfect. The only thing we really changed around that was just wording and talking about isolation and talking about connectivity. That has actually prompted us to expedite our Microsoft Teams integration. We don't have that one fully fleshed out yet, and with, I think in one week, mid-March 12 million people became active on Microsoft Teams that had never used it before. That data definitely made us say, "Okay, we should expedite that one part of our product roadmap immediately," but other than that, our CTO has really held us steady to not be reactionary.

Christian Beck:

That's good. He's probably also not wanting to spin up building a bunch of new stuff too, so that's a good level had to have in there, I'm imagining.

Anna Eaglin:

It sounds like maybe you're making some small tactical changes, like you said, the Microsoft Teams integration, but overall you're staying the course path that you were on. It sounds like one of the ways that you validated that was by being in close contact with customers. During this [inaudible 00:14:11] you tried to stay in contact with customers, and how have you made sure that you're moving along with them to continue to support them during what's going on?

Kirsten Moorefield:

A lot of that comes from customer success, so our customer success managers reaching out to people and specifically offering help. We also created some free resources on how to navigate change. We've put up some webinars, things like that. Again, really just marketing, product marketing, and customer success specific messaging. Then that has opened up the door to those conversations with our customers about, "Hey, what's really happening with you right now? What is specifically the help that you need?" and then, of course, like I said, we also launched our Slack integration, so with that, we've set up some follow up interviews with some users on how's that going. Really, just typical stuff that we would do anyway, but then also just specifically targeted and tailored around what's happening right now in the world.

Christian Beck:

What have you been tweaking on the messaging side? How are you figuring out... Are you testing it? Are you figuring out what's working? Are you experimenting? What does that look like?

Kirsten Moorefield:

We have built out some product guides, basically just blogs or low-burn content that we've created, and then we're watching what are people saying about it, how many people are using those pages, things like that. Then that helps us understand what is it that people are actually needing and caring about right now. Then that helps direct us. It's always measuring or balancing that qualitative and quantitative data. Some of it has been actual conversations with people, and some of it has been creating content and seeing what people react to in the data.

Christian Beck:

Have you found it hard to stay above the noise that's out there now with so many people reaching out?

Kirsten Moorefield:

Okay, yeah, that's a really good question. I'm really glad you asked that. We, like week one of the world shutting down, made an intentional decision we will never talk about COVID-19, quarantine, any of those things because so many people who are at all related to health are now saying, "Hey, we're doing a COVID-19 webinar on something that has nothing to do with anything you've ever heard about from us."

Kirsten Moorefield:

We've been really intentional to just say maybe a half a sentence to one full maximum, one sentence about, "Hey, we understand this is happening in this time," whether it's, "Hey, maybe you're feeling isolated," or, "Maybe your team's working remote for the first time ever," that type of stuff, and then we just move on to you, to talk about you, what do you need, what's happening in your life. We've gotten a lot of really terrible messaging saying, "Hey, COVID-19, blah, blah, blah, so our values at our company that you don't care about are blah, blah, blah."

Christian Beck:

That's basically what I'm hearing in my head when I see those emails too. You bring up a good point too. We've even thought about, it's like, "What's your place in your own messaging?" I mean, sometimes you're directly related to it, but most times, you're not addressing it, moving on, but keeping the focus on you and how you're doing rather than yourself.

Kirsten Moorefield:

Marketing is never about the company. It's always about the user, the audience. The best marketing should be, at least.

Christian Beck:

Well, that is really wise words to leave off on. Thank you so much for taking time out to join us on this episode. Really appreciate your insights, Kirsten, and hope you all stay healthy and stay well.

Christian Beck:

That was Kirsten Moorefield, the CEO and co-founder of Cloverleaf, with some great insights. I know what my favorite point was that she made, Anna. What was yours?

Anna Eaglin:

For me, this is becoming a big theme. It's deciding not to shift the product, but shift the messaging specifically. I really like this, and I think we started to hear a couple of product people say this. It's not that they're going to immediately change what they're building, but they're going to talk about it differently. They're going to talk about how they relate to their customers differently. Very much a shift in the positioning and the messaging of how they're talking about the product and how they're talking to customers right now. I love that because it's a lot more agile than changing the backlog.

Christian Beck:

I think it's good too that she was even self-aware to know that she and the CEO are always wanting to do new things, and they are balanced by someone else too. I think it also speaks to the value of having a well-rounded team to make those decisions so you don't follow that and get too spun in different directions.

Christian Beck:

But yeah, no, I think you hit it well, and I think she... I really appreciate her saying it, and I hope people see that. I mean, honestly through this time, it's not as if all of humanity changed. I mean, we're all going to need roughly the same things we're going to need. It just so happens that, as she mentioned, they were already hitting on some of those values that became more valuable before, and so they just kept doing that. I think you don't look at this and just say, "Oh, we're just going to totally change everything. You just might change the way you talk about it." Yeah, I hear... I think that was really important.

Christian Beck:

I think related, the point that I had marked down for myself was just the decision not to react quickly. It's a hard thing to do because you feel like as things are moving fast, you need to react quickly, and you almost... I don't know. For me, I almost felt like over the last month, it's like if I'm not making decisions really fast, I'm not keeping up, but there's almost a slow and steadiness that's required where you need to back up and not change with every new change because it can be almost catastrophic to your product to just constantly be whipping back and forth.

Anna Eaglin:

Yeah. It reminds me a [inaudible 00:19:41] at Innovatemap, we have a daily inspiration channel that people have been sharing things in, and it's been really great, but something that our colleague Austin shared today that I really liked is this quote. I can't even remember the person, so I can't cite it appropriately except that Austin found it on Twitter. It was that fear is a feeling, but afraid is like an action and that you can feel fear, but to then act based on your fear is a decision that you make. I think I like this idea of you can feel the fear of wanting to react but then not doing that is a very clear decision to say, "I'm going to wait and see how this goes."

Christian Beck:

I love it, and I, while you were talking, pulled it up. Jon Acuff, A-C-U-F-F, I don't know if that's a hard A or a soft A. Jon Acuff said it on Twitter. That's the citation on that great quote. But I think it's a great way to wrap-

Anna Eaglin:

Well said, Jon.

Christian Beck:

Well said, Jon. Yeah, great way to wrap up this episode too because I think we kind of wrapped all this thing up about not reacting too quickly and figuring out how to filter all the stuff that's going on. That up this week's episode. I hope this conversation provided you with another fresh perspective to tackle the week ahead.

Christian Beck:

Hopefully, Kirsten shared some things that maybe you were already witnessing, but with a new lens on it. Again, if you're looking for a community to lean on during this, I highly recommend, if you haven't already, go to betterproduct.community and sign up to be a part of this growing community to product leaders.

Christian Beck:

The Better Product Community really started in Indianapolis where we're based, but we've been branching out a lot lately. Kirsten's from Cincinnati, so we're really starting to welcome more people and products that are wanting to lean on people even outside of their day-to-day to learn from and to share with. Please check out that. Also, look for me and Anna on LinkedIn. If you want to connect, we welcome that. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week with another episode. Oh, I'm Christian Beck. Or I say-

Anna Eaglin:

And I'm Anna Eaglin.

Christian Beck:

... Christian. Do we say last names?

Anna Eaglin:

Say Christian.

Christian Beck:

All right.

Anna Eaglin:

We never say last names. God.

Christian Beck:

I'm Christian.

Anna Eaglin:

And I'm Anna, and this has been Better Product.

Christian Beck:

Weekly.